July 2023 PNW Observations and Discussions

[Phil]

39 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

You literally said the exact same thing last time you were here.    Of course next week most of us will be baking again.   And Everett will still be chilly. 

So Everett is a cool oasis in a sea of torch? Why is that?

[Timmy Supercell]

25 minutes ago, LowerGarfield said:

Temperature wise, it's about what East of the Cascades gets, as you of course know minus the 76F low temp which is nuts to me. But I see the humidity  at or approaching 100F and I don't know how you survive. Humidity here is often in the 20% range in the summer.

You should come back to Southern OR.

For sure, I wouldn't function like a normal person if I didn't have A/C. I pulled it off for the 11 years I lived in Klamath Falls, thanks to their thin climate and cooldowns at night.

I even experienced June and July 2021 before leaving. 

But now that I have an upstairs, and a bedroom with attic access, my room stays warmer than most parts of the house still. I occasionally have to sneak the air setting down a degree or two before I crash at night. 

[Omegaraptor]

9 minutes ago, Phil said:

So Everett is a cool oasis in a sea of torch? Why is that?

Northerly latitude and proximity to the Salish Sea/Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Not really a “cool oasis in a sea of torch”. It’s like that everywhere north of Everett on the water too. You’re farther north than Maine’s northernmost tip!

[LowerGarfield]

2 minutes ago, Timmy Supercell said:

For sure, I wouldn't function like a normal person if I didn't have A/C. I pulled it off for the 11 years I lived in Klamath Falls, thanks to their thin climate and cooldowns at night.

I even experienced June and July 2021 before leaving. 

But now that I have an upstairs, and a bedroom with attic access, my room stays warmer than most parts of the house still. I occasionally have to sneak the air setting down a degree or two before I crash at night. 

You also had some light snow.

My humidity % is 29 currently but I guess it's a trade off with wild fire risk.

[Omegaraptor]

10 minutes ago, Timmy Supercell said:

For sure, I wouldn't function like a normal person if I didn't have A/C. I pulled it off for the 11 years I lived in Klamath Falls, thanks to their thin climate and cooldowns at night.

I even experienced June and July 2021 before leaving. 

But now that I have an upstairs, and a bedroom with attic access, my room stays warmer than most parts of the house still. I occasionally have to sneak the air setting down a degree or two before I crash at night. 

In early July 2021 I spent a week in Sunriver - every day had highs in the 90s. Some days had lows in the 30s. Our cabin didn’t have AC at all, and at no point did we need it. The temp just fell like a rock as soon as the sun set.

And honestly, the air is so uber dry that 90 there feels like 85 in the Willamette Valley.

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

You literally said the exact same thing last time you were here.    Of course next week most of us will be baking again.   And Everett will still be chilly. 

0z GFS and GEM both delay the onset of any real heat.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour ago, Front Ranger said:

0z GFS and GEM both delay the onset of any real heat.

Not a big surprise (clown range often works that way) and I am just fine with it.

[TT-SEA]

9 hours ago, Phil said:

So Everett is a cool oasis in a sea of torch? Why is that?

I will use an extreme map from the long range 06Z GFS to illustrate.  The area from Everett to Bellingham is directly downwind from the Strait of Juan de Fuca.    Cold air gets sucked in through the Strait on a west wind.   Its a direct and wide waterway path to the cold open ocean to the west.   South of Everett in the Seattle area and out in my area and all the way down through western OR the path to the open ocean has much more land to cover and it warms up in the process.  

The area around Everett is often colder than places well to its north in SW BC and Vancouver Island in the summer.    All about being in the path of the west wind that is usually screaming through the Strait.  

[Tyler Mode]

Nice cool 47.8 this morning with brilliant sunshine.

[TT-SEA]

Per the 06Z ECMWF... SEA should be right around 80 the next 3 days after mid 70s today.  

I am still getting used to the idea that they actually fixed the ECMWF cool bias.   But they did.

[TT-SEA]

6 minutes ago, Tyler Mode said:

Nice cool 47.8 this morning with brilliant sunshine.

Clear here this morning as well... low clouds are quite patchy.   Should bubble up into partly cloudy later this morning given the cold air aloft.   

 

[Chewbacca Defense]

16 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Yes... its how warming periods are naturally reversed.    

So, if it happens in 2025 as the article indicates could be the soonest it could happen, winters are going to start being LIT for snowlovers in 2026!!! 

[Chewbacca Defense]

14 hours ago, Front Ranger said:

You'd think the NOAA would have some sort of standard for this? Also wonder how long the sensor has been in that spot.

I would venture to guess that placement for flight operations/safety would trump any accuracy for regional weather data/records.  Even if there is a UHI effect skewing the data as it relates to the region, it would be secondary, as they are primarily concerned about what is going on at the airport.

This would especially be the case in a location like Phoenix, where these hot days have a HUGE impact on take off performance.  I think in some more extreme cases makes it where a plane cannot take off because they just can't make enough power to get off the ground.

[the_convergence_zone]

1 hour ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

I would venture to guess that placement for flight operations/safety would trump any accuracy for regional weather data/records.  Even if there is a UHI effect skewing the data as it relates to the region, it would be secondary, as they are primarily concerned about what is going on at the airport.

This would especially be the case in a location like Phoenix, where these hot days have a HUGE impact on take off performance.  I think in some more extreme cases makes it where a plane cannot take off because they just can't make enough power to get off the ground.

Exactly, they need to know the temperature next to the runways for aviation. It's not like there's been any change to KPHX in recent years. Whatever bias is present by being next to those runways has always been there, so if you're breaking records, those are still records. Unless there has been sensor drift which can easily overwhelm any UHI effects. 

Sea-Tac had major sensor drift issues around ~2013. Once that was fixed, temperatures dropped by 1-2 F and most of the complaints about the siting went away. Others continue to blame the third runway every time Sea-Tac breaks a record, while citing zero evidence despite the ease of statistically comparing to adjacent stations like KBFI or KRNT. Sea-Tac just generally seems to run warm when the winds are northerly -- i.e. when Sea-Tac is downwind of the urban parts of Seattle. 

The main thing that irritates me is the suggestion that Olympia Airport is somehow a better climate monitoring site than Sea-Tac. KOLM is in a filled-in swamp that is nowhere near Seattle. It runs super cold whenever there are calm winds and clear skies. Summers are getting drier around here so there are more of those clear nights that run cold there. Seattle was not built on a swamp and Seattle is in the Olympic Mountains rain shadow. And it's still next to a runway and the surrounding area has evolved. 

The "gold standard" climate site in NW Washington is the Quinault CRN site which is in an open field with several redundant aspirated temperature sensors and a massive wind shield for the rain gauge. It's also in the middle of the rainforest and averages like 130" of rain per year, so it's not really useful for saying anything about how the climate of Puget Sound is evolving. 

It's fine to think of some of these records with an asterisk from a climate perspective, but the main purpose of weather records is for public awareness and the public lives in cities that are full of pavement and buildings. Using a rural site that is biased cold relative to the city doesn't do any good either. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

20 minutes ago, the_convergence_zone said:

The "gold standard" climate site in NW Washington is the Quinault CRN site which is in an open field with several redundant aspirated temperature sensors and a massive wind shield for the rain gauge. It's also in the middle of the rainforest and averages like 130" of rain per year, so it's not really useful for saying anything about how the climate of Puget Sound is evolving.

Not to mention being on the immediate coast, which is likely (as many climate models suggest) to mute the initial temperature signals of a warming climate.

[TacomaWx]

73/54 day yesterday…got down to 55 this morning and up to 63 now. Overall the rain event monday underperformed atleast Seattle south. Atleast July won’t end up being a total shutout. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

69°F for a max yesterday, with 0.10" of rain, bringing me to 1.17" for the month.

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

Dropped down to 44 last night. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

15 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

73/54 day yesterday…got down to 55 this morning and up to 63 now. Overall the rain event monday underperformed atleast Seattle south. Atleast July won’t end up being a total shutout. 

Underperformed in your area but not every place from Seattle south. Tim and Andrew got more than modelled. Even Eugene (modelled to stay bone dry) got a few sprinkles.

[TacomaWx]

9 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Underperformed in your area but not every place from Seattle south. Tim and Andrew got more than modelled. Even Eugene (modelled to stay bone dry) got a few sprinkles.

Yeah I mean the important thing was places in the mountains got some rain. In terms of fire danger it’s not as critical for the urban areas to score some rain…would’ve been nice tho. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

2 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

Yeah I mean the important thing was places in the mountains got some rain. In terms of fire danger it’s not as critical for the urban areas to score some rain…would’ve been nice tho. 

Hopefully the next summer rain event both happens and shares the wealth a bit more equally, though to be honest this sort of northerly focus is really to be expected in many cases; summers get drier the further south one goes.

[Phishy Wx]

the inevitable warm/dry winter per CFS?  we're due so wouldn't be surprised

 

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

8 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

the inevitable warm/dry winter per CFS?  we're due so wouldn't be surprised

It would be a classic El Niño winter. And that is probably what the model is doing: just going with the overall pattern for the expected ENSO state.

One thing I will point out: El Niño has more of a warm signal than a dry one in the PNW. The strongest El Niño’s tend to be wet here, in fact.

Edit: El Niño, not La Niña.

[TacomaWx]

9 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Hopefully the next summer rain event both happens and shares the wealth a bit more equally, though to be honest this sort of northerly focus is really to be expected in many cases; summers get drier the further south one goes.

It’s actually fairly impressive we got 0.09” here at the peak of summertime dryness. I was just hoping for more like 0.20” or so but I get the feeling there will be another modest rain event in mid-late august. 

[GobBluth]

GFS gone away from a torching in the day 10 range. Likely see a lot of model confusion in coming days as the western Pacific tropics get active.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 minute ago, GobBluth said:

GFS gone away from a torching in the day 10 range. Likely see a lot of model confusion in coming days as the western Pacific tropics get active.

“BuT mOdEls OnLy PuLL thE rUg oN cOLd!”

— whine that lasts most of the winter here

[Rubus Leucodermis]

22 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

It’s actually fairly impressive we got 0.09” here at the peak of summertime dryness. I was just hoping for more like 0.20” or so but I get the feeling there will be another modest rain event in mid-late august. 

Sure hope so. It would make for a more typical summer. Our summers are not supposed to be completely bone dry. And there was nothing “modest” about the most recent event in Whatcom County and southern BC. It was quite astounding up this way. Heavier than any rainfall since mid-January (that’s right, heavier than any rainfall in February).

[Omegaraptor]

1 hour ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

It would be a classic El Niño winter. And that is probably what the model is doing: just going with the overall pattern for the expected ENSO state.

One thing I will point out: El Niño has more of a warm signal than a dry one in the PNW. The strongest El Niño’s tend to be wet here, in fact.

Edit: El Niño, not La Niña.

A legitimate torchy/dry winter isn’t easy to pull off around here.

El Niño winters favor SW flow, which is the easiest way to torch here and also happens to be how most of our winter rainfall comes.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

18 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

A legitimate torchy/dry winter isn’t easy to pull off around here.

El Niño winters favor SW flow, which is the easiest way to torch here and also happens to be how most of our winter rainfall comes.

2001/2002 certainly qualified, but I just checked and that was coming off a strong La Niña into neutral conditions.

Edit: or was that 00/01? Regardless, I do remember a winter in that time frame, one of the two, that was really dry and mild. The ground actually was dry on the surface in January, licorice ferns withered due to lack of rain, no snow except for a few flurries, only a few frosts. This was in Portland.

[Phishy Wx]

has there been a strong Nino coming out of a 3 year Nina before?  (assuming we indeed have a strong Nino)

[iFred]

1 hour ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

“BuT mOdEls OnLy PuLL thE rUg oN cOLd!”

— whine that lasts most of the winter here

What is it like having the biggest brain here? Do you consider it a burden or a blessing?

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 minutes ago, iFred said:

What is it like having the biggest brain here? Do you consider it a burden or a blessing?

I try not to boast, but it is hard to be humble.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Phishy Wx said:

the inevitable warm/dry winter per CFS?  we're due so wouldn't be surprised

 

 

The CFS is useless, though. I wouldn’t trust it for a second.

17 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

has there been a strong Nino coming out of a 3 year Nina before?  (assuming we indeed have a strong Nino)

1911/12 is the last one.

Closest post-WWII example is 1957/58 which followed a 3 year -ENSO, but only 2 of those 3 years met niña criteria.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

31 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

2001/2002 certainly qualified, but I just checked and that was coming off a strong La Niña into neutral conditions.

Edit: or was that 00/01? Regardless, I do remember a winter in that time frame, one of the two, that was really dry and mild. The ground actually was dry on the surface in January, licorice ferns withered due to lack of rain, no snow except for a few flurries, only a few frosts. This was in Portland.

00-01 was pretty dry and splitty and the final year of the 3 year Nina. 

[Phil]

Beautiful day in Everett. Sun is out, and you can stand in it and not pour sweat. Went for a run this AM and it was my fastest 5K this year!

Heading down to Seattle at 130pm.

[TT-SEA]

Just now, Phil said:

Beautiful day in Everett. Sun is out, and you can stand in it and not pour sweat. Went for a run this AM and it was my fastest 5K this year!

Heading down to Seattle at 130pm.

Spectacular day... lots of sun with clean air and pleasant temps.    Summer in Seattle at its best.  

72 and sunny here with a few puffy clouds.

[RentonHill]

[Phishy Wx]

11 minutes ago, Phil said:

The CFS is useless, though. I wouldn’t trust it for a second.

1911/12 is the last one.

Closest post-WWII example is 1957/58 which followed a 3 year -ENSO, but only 2 of those 3 years met niña criteria.

i'll take a 'Normal' snowfall year in a Nino anyday (at least here)

[TT-SEA]

No real heat on the 12Z ECMWF.    Might just stick with the pleasant status quo for the foreseeable future.   Sunny with highs around 80 in Seattle... perfection. 

[RentonHill]

yes rain would be great...but avoiding any big heat wave is almost as good at this point